Bahía de invierno

If this film is accurate, Sweden today certainly looks different than it did in my parents time. If you like that, you will probably like this film. It was well acted, and is a competent drama.

But my biggest problem is that I have a difficult time accepting the premise that this young woman who looks 18 is going to have a romance with a kid who looks like he's 13.

I looked forward to watching this film. Sadly, this was really bad.

The worst part is that this film had potential. The tone, setting and main themes are great. But the chemistry between the actors is missing. The main character elisabeth completely lacks personality. She looked bored and depressed the entire film and I struggle to understand why john john would fall in love with someone who seemed dead inside? 1,5 hours was not enough for this movie to be both a romeo and juliet film AND a youth gone bad story/struggling kid from the slums. There are side characters/plots who's presence feels unnecessary because they dont explore them: the evil grandmother and the selling of the summerhouse... elisabeths dead mother...john johns mothers evil boyfriend...the school theatre show... john johns best friends spiral into crime. Nothing in this movie gets resolved. No one gets redemption. No one gets rewarded for anything. And since I'm not at all convinced by j and e:s "lovestory" but am instead invested in how they will perform in school, jonh johns fabulous friends, jj's relationship with his mother - instead, it's a frustrating watch with little or no reward at the end. Are they bonnie and clyde now or what happened?

Two individuals with different backgrounds ... yes you've probably heard the story before. And yes Shakespeare (and others I reckon) have done amazing work with that premise. So if you compare it with masterpieces ... well this won't fair too good.

Having said that, if you can free yourself from any comparisons (or at least most of them), you can have some fun with this version of the class war ... and love. Not too much war going on I reckon.

It's a decent effort that targets a teenage audience. So if you are the target audience, you may like this more than others here.

Although the leads are very easy on the eye, the overall plot was a disappointment.

A story line that has been done umpteen times, girl from good family meets boy from bad, however, in this case it got lost and confused.... This is a shame, because it started with promise, and ended with as a confused disappointment.

There needed to be more story and character development......and there was time, the movie is just on 1 hour 30.... The leads are so easy to look at 2 hours would have been not a problem. If we could have had more exploration around the final scenes with buddies mates and then the ending, which is total confusion, maybe the story wouldn't have got so 'lost'.

Overall i kinda liked it, but with a Netfilx budget a few adjustments here and there could have made this movie even more pleasing on the eye.

Its a good youth love story and different cultures meet.

Worth your time Check it out.